Rite of Spring
by hollow echos
Summary: Follow-up fic to "The Gone Fishin' Job." A string of endless cons wear on Eliot. Our hitter's done his best to ensure the safety of his team members, up to and including taking the bullet for one of them. Paring: Eliot/Hardison.


**Rite of Spring**

The seasons ebb and flow. The summer and fall are spent with a nervous eye looking west in anticipation of the harsh season to come. Trees absorb nutrients from the earth and sun from the sky; mammals gorge themselves or store away food in preparation for the harsh season to come, all the while watching for the storm clouds to roll in on the horizon, heavy-laden with winter's first snow.

The problem comes, though, months later when the thaw doesn't come and the snow doesn't break. Seasons of preparation for the cold and the frost can't build up an infinite reserve. There comes a time when the stores are stripped away, where once lay sinuous fat and muscle now leaves skin sagging loosely on bone.

Resilience is a funny thing, in that. Even as the body begins failing, the mind presses on. In dire circumstances, hope still persists, a tiny flame kept flickering through the chilly nights that the next morning will bring the first melt, a break from an endless cascade of cons, a reprieve at last. A chance for renewal and rest.

"_Eliot, Hardison. We have a con."_

Six words. Just enough time to step in close to the fire and coax circulation back into his abused hands. Then it was stepping back into the cold again. Spring was right around the corner.

The body wavers, the mind stumbles on, and the seasons march onward to the steady beat of time.

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It's a single moment, sometimes, a snap decision that changes the course of a con for better or worse. Lying in a barren room, what looked like a recently stripped office, Eliot didn't have much opportunity to alter his situation for better or worse. He'd been working on less than fumes when the guards had made their circuit around the building five minutes early. He'd been tasered and left flopping on the damned floor like a fish, his muscles spasming, before he even realized they were there.

An hour later though, when the door popped open, and it wasn't those burly guards lumbering in, but Hardison, he might've been ready to hug the man if his hands hadn't been secured behind his back by steel manacles.

"Hardison, what are you doing here instead of behind one of your fancy computer screens?" he mumbled, sounding exhausted despite himself.

The hacker had flashed him that trademark grin, stuck out his chin like he was boasting that he could do his own job and Eliot's, and finally responded. "You got caught, I'm here to bust you out. Let's go."

"Help me up. The cuffs don't make this too easy." This time he managed to work up enough ire to sound almost normal.

Hardison advanced into the room, taking care to leave the door propped open so the two of them could get out. He lowered a hand to help pull Eliot up.

"How'd you get in here anyways?"

"Electronic locks. They haven't invented one that can keep me out yet," he said, motioning to the phone he held in his other hand.

"I swear you could run the world from that little device of yours."

"Come on, now, don't be so conservative in your expectations of me," Hardison joked.

The two of them were walking toward the door–well, Hardison was walking. Eliot was blundering toward the door, trying to shake some blood into legs that had fallen asleep awhile ago. In what seemed par for the course for his day thus far, it was then that the guards poked their head through the door. Their faces were twisted into angry expressions when they saw their captive and another man trying to make their escapes.

Eliot's eyes went to the gun in the lead thug's hand.

They didn't need to ask what was going on, that much was evident. The lead man raised the gun and leveled it at Hardison's chest. It was simple odds, really. Two on two was much too fair. Much easier to drop one of them right here on the spot. You only needed one to interrogate.

Eliot eyed the gun leveled at Hardison's chest, observed the white-hot fear in his eyes, and made one of those split decisions that more often than not made the hypothetical worst case scenario suddenly very real.

He felt the impact as his shoulder collided with the lead man, sending him sprawling across the floor. He felt the white hot pain lance through his thigh as it collapsed beneath his weight and he landed on the thug.

The guard kicked him off and rolled him onto the ground. Eliot felt the blood pooling under his leg, already spreading across the floor. The second guard replaced his gun in his holster, picked up Hardison's phone from where he'd dropped it in the excitement. He helped his coworker to his feet and they were backing up toward the door.

"Chew on that before you think about trying to bust out of here again." The words were spat out, weapons in their own right, and he grinned darkly. [Also, somewhere in this passage I'd put in a moment where Eliot thinks about how the handcuffs will handicap him, something about him thinking through his options, etc. The fact that they aren't mentioned once seems…odd.]

Oh, no. There was little room to be thinking about anything but the wound in his leg, the pain threatening to overwhelm him.

"Hardison," he rasped.

The hacker was pressed up against the wall, chest rising and falling with rapid breaths with his gaze locked on the red stain that was spreading across Eliot's favorite pair of jeans. What a waste. There would be no salvaging these now, and somehow the thought just made him want to sigh and close his eyes.

He fought off the urge and instead snapped, "Hardison! Snap out of it. I would take care of this myself if I could take these damn cuffs off. Get over here and get pressure on the wound."

Hardison shook his head, the shock of the sudden terror melting away. The hacker was on his knees next to where Eliot was lying on the ground then. His hands paused just inches above the wound. "Oh, god. This is so not good. I am so not ready for this."

"Hardison, pressure on the wound. _Now _would be much better than later," Eliot hissed between pained breaths.

His friend locked eyes with him for the first time since the scuffle. The man was an open book, the concern practically bled into his voice. "Is this going to hurt you?"

"Well, the alternative, to just sit here and have a friendly chat while I bleed out, is going to kill me. Do it." _Do it now before I lose my nerve, _Eliot thought to himself.

Hardison shrugged out of his sweatshirt, balled it up, and pressed it against the wound.

Oh lord was he thankful that his hands were restrained. Training can do a lot, but he was tired and beyond exhausted and instincts were rising above his carefully honed skill set. He knew what would've happened if his hands were loose, he'd have clobbered Hardison for the pain he was inflicting as he tried to help. There would've been two of them hurt, one bleeding, one bruised black and blue, laying there useless on the ground instead of just one.

It was a hot poker in his leg. His fists were clenched as his fingernails tore bloody crescents into his palm, his muscles pulled against the iron cuffs on his wrist until they bit into his skin. His eyes were screwed shut as he let a shaky breath out. In and out. One breath at a time.

"Eliot, you ok man?" he asked as he started to loosen pressure to alleviate the pain. He was often oblivious, but never actively malevolent, and even Hardison could tell that the pressure was causing Eliot enormous pain.

"Keep the pressure, Hardison," Eliot barked.

"I'm hurting you," the hacker said, shaking his head.

Damn it hurt. If he trusted Hardison to provide triage without his incessant instruction, he'd have passed out already. He couldn't, though, so he fought through the darkness pressing in from the edges of his vision. "We need to slow the bleeding until the others can come. Hold that on there."

"Oh, rescue, right," Hardison, agreed, nodding.

"Guys, you hear me?" he spoke into thin air, mouth tight. Eliot's eyes focused in long enough to see the tiny bud embedded in the hacker's ear. For all the times he harassed Hardison about his tech, it was times like this, when his life relied on that very equipment, that he remembered just how many times over he'd have been dead without it.

"Yes, there were gunshots. Eliot's been shot through the leg." Hardison swallowed.

"They want to know how bad it is," Hardison said, staring down at the red leaking in around the edges of his sweatshirt.

"Tell them not to take their sweet time about it," Eliot suggested, barely keeping himself from growling the words.

Hardison muttered a few more words to the rest of the team and then went silent. He reached a hand up to his ear and switched off the mic. They were suddenly so very alone. "Ok, it's just you and me for the moment. How bad is this really?" Hardison asked, his eyes focused on the balled up sweatshirt pressed against the wound.

"I've had worse. It was a through and through, at least. No bullet still lodged in there that we'd have to worry about." It was even the truth, really. He was a retrieval specialist, so there were occupational hazards involved. Knife wounds, captured alive and tortured, a bullet through the head and his body deposited into an unmarked grave. He'd suffered all but the last.

Hardison shook his head as he sunk down from a tense crouch to his knees, abandoning his awkward pose. The movement jostled Eliot's leg and the hitter stifled a cry. He needed a distraction, anything, to keep him from focusing on it. "What the hell were you thinking Hardison? You stay out of the field."

Hardison frowned, and there was a stiff, mulish set to his mouth. Hardison was one of the most easy-going guys Eliot knew, but he had a tendency to get stubborn at the worst possible moments. "I was thinking that my teammate, my _boyfriend, _was lying in a room somewhere when I was a building away sitting behind a screen. They were electronic locks. I could-I _did_-hack them." He met Eliot's eyes squarely, a challenging gaze.

"Only to promptly get caught and thrown in here yourself." Eliot didn't mention the bullet wound. That was no one's fault really, and trying to make Hardison feel guilty about it was not even to be considered. It was a thug with a loose trigger finger and a snap decision on Eliot's part, that he would rather take the bullet than have Hardison suffer it in his place.

Hardison shrugged, but he didn't look as abashed as Eliot had hoped. "Maybe I wasn't thinking rationally, but the rest of the team was all tied up. It was me or nothing."

"You still weren't thinking straight."

Hardison's face turned hard at that. "I was thinking that we should be fishing right now instead of being locked in this damn room. We've been running con after con, we're all showing it."

"I am not-"

Eliot's words were hot and hasty, and Hardison gestured sharply, cutting off Eliot physically as well as verbally. "Don't you even dare start in on that routine, Eliot," Hardison snarled. "Someone, a two-bit rent a cop who probably hasn't been to the gym in ten years, got the jump on you. You're just as tired as the rest of us."

Silence hung in the air for a moment. Eliot didn't really have a snappy comeback for that.

"And now you're shot, and I'm here trying to keep the blood from leaking out of your freaking leg. This isn't right, Eliot," Hardison finished with a nervous giggle. He was trying too hard to keep the atmosphere light. Eliot could tell the man was out of his depth.

"It's our job, Hardison. We help people. We right wrongs, and restore the natural order of things." They were lofty words, to be fair, but Eliot believed the whole-heartedly. He wouldn't even consider being here still was that not the case. What they did – it mattered, it had to.

Hardison sighed, looking away. "Helping people is fine. Being reckless with your life is not. You wanted to go fishing, remember? Even rigged up that con so we could go out in the back country after we finished posing as IRS agents." A wan smile stretched across his face.

"Remember where that got us? I recall something of being chased through the woods by an irate group of men with a fetish for military clothing and guns," Eliot added with a wince as he shifted his weight to relieve some of the pressure on his leg.

Hardison shifted his grip with the movement, never letting the pressure up on the wound. "At least you put up an effort to finagle yourself a break. The pace of these cons has us fraying at the seams."

"What do you want me to do Hardison?" Eliot shot back. He was tired and he was hurt and that pitying look Hardison was giving him just wouldn't do.

"You want to go fishing? Then take a damn fishing trip. Preferably before you get a bullet through the back of your head instead of through your leg. At least then I can have the peace of mind to know you died happy."

Hardison turned his attention to his earbud then before Eliot could say a word, taking it off mute. He cocked his head to the side for a moment as the voices of his teammates flooded in. He nodded to no one in particular, as if his teammates could somehow perceive the gesture. "Almost here? Like how far out?"

There was chatter in response. Eliot could at the very least pick up a piercing cackle from Parker. That one was a trademark no one had yet been able to duplicate. "_Explosives?_ Who gave Parker explosives?"

The hacker shook his head. "Come on, Eliot. We have to move. Parker's using plastic explosives to blow the lock off the door."

Eliot raised an eyebrow. That girl really was going to be the death of one of them. "What happened to picking a lock? Her suicidal streak graduating to the next level?"

"It's an electronic lock, which would usually be my area of expertise. She's doing what she can. Now come on." Hardison did his best to tie his sodden sweatshirt around Eliot's leg the best he could before he moved around to Eliot's back. He locked his arms around Eliot's chest and pulled backwards, scooting them as far back into the room as they could.

Eliot was mostly dead weight, despite his efforts to the contrary. He hadn't said as much, but his vision was fraying at the edges, spotting white here and there and the room had started to swing like a pendulum somewhere around the time Hardison had started yelling at him. He did manage to focus his gaze long enough to observe the red streak he had left behind on the carpet. Sometimes you did leave a bit of yourself behind on a job.

What Hardison didn't get though, was that he was willing to do it. He was willing to leave behind a pint or two of blood if it meant that Hardison left in one piece. Eliot had lost a lot of himself over the years. A handful of hair yanked out of his head by an assailant in Prague, bits of flesh and bone, of _him, _scattered across the globe like a roadmap of all the places he'd had the misfortune to end up. Eliot had had flings before, quick fiery little things that snuffed themselves out before they ever really got anywhere. Of all of those failed relationships, Hardison had been the only one to be able to fill those holes, to feel like those pieces of himself he'd shed over the years didn't make him incomplete. It was something worth working for, yes, exhausting himself for. Maybe even dying for. He hoped he didn't have to endure that gauntlet quite yet. They'd not even been together for a year. Eliot still wanted to show him the family ranch nestled in the shadow of the Appalachian Mountains, wanted him to take a deep inhalation while standing on Southern soil and understand what a real breath of fresh air was. Hell, Eliot had it penciled in to attend one of those geek conventions someday, even, if only to understand why Hardison was so damnably addicted to them.

Hardison was back around to his leg again, briefly pulling back the sweatshirt to observe the wound.

"This isn't good, Eliot. You're quiet all of a sudden. Are you ok?"

"I've been shot, Hardison. I'm about as good as you could expect under the circumstances. How far out is Parker?"

There was a high pitched giggle from the other side of the door.

"Duck and cover, Hardison!"

The room shook and heat blossomed and flashed, taking away what little breath Eliot had left. The explosion knocked out every one of his senses for a few moments, even overriding the pain in his leg.

Parker came trotting in through the mangled door frame like it was just another stroll in the park. The smile on her face melted to something more akin to worry when she spotted Eliot and Hardison crouched down in the corner. "We need to go guys. Whatever passes for security in this joint is going to be swarming this place in no time," she remarked as she stopped in front of the pair. She shook her head, pouting. "So _loud_," she complained.

"Ok, let's go," Hardison replied, once again tying his now-red hoodie around Eliot's leg. Tighter this time, Eliot noted. Tight enough to cause him to snarl and the world to flash white again for a moment. "Can you get Eliot's cuffs? He had his shoulder dislocated a few times, it bothers him. It's gotta be sore by now."

Eliot once in awhile forgot details of Hardison's life. Hardison remembered every fragment of his, no matter how seemingly significant. Even here, now, it made his heart swell with something alarming, and he ducked his head to hide the slight smile that stole over his face.

Parker nodded, dropping down to Eliot's back as he struggled to lean forward with Hardison's help. It took the little thief less than thirty seconds to rid him of the manacles that had tortured him for hours. His arms fell down to his sides, stiff after such a long period of inactivity. He flexed his hands a few times, then moving his arms a bit to shake blood flow back into them. He rotated his shoulders carefully, trying to get as close to a full range as possible.

His teammates didn't give him long to recover. Before he recognized what was going on each of them had an arm looped over their shoulders and were pulling him up. They were moving down the hallway then. The stairs weren't easy, but an elevator was a choke point and presented no alternative at all. He was a hitter. He got hit, he got punched and he got the pain to go with it. Then he stood up, steadied himself, and walked on.

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"You're going to the damn hospital, Eliot, regardless of how much you bitch and moan," Hardison snapped as they pulled away from the building with a squeal of tires against pavement. He was in the back with Eliot strewn across his lap. Though he'd spoken harshly, his fingers were rubbing small circles on his hip, hidden out of sight of the others. They'd hastily wrapped his leg with bandages from the well stocked first aid kit Hardison kept in his van. It was specifically to be prepared for times like this. Eliot had made sure of that.

They whipped around the corner, causing the pair of them to lose their balance for a moment. At least Nate was driving. Parker in the driver's seat right about now would have Hardison and him thrown up against the side of the van as she whirled around corners full tilt, wild grin on her face. Not to say she wasn't making an admirable effort, trying to direct Nate on how to drive from the passenger seat. Her advice mostly consisted of, "Nate, you're so _slow_. Come on! You can do more than fifty in a thirty-five!" He could only hope that Nate didn't take seriously her suggestion that stop lights more guideline and suggestion than law.

"I can patch myself up," Eliot muttered belligerently. This was far from the worst injury he'd ever received; he'd had to provide his own triage out in the field on one occasion.

"You are _not _stitching up your own leg," Hardison hissed, flexing his hands, observing that the blood on them must have dried. It was relatively dark in the back of the van; the overhead light didn't provide much illumination so he couldn't be sure, though. "I spent the last hour watching you almost bleed out. You are going to the hospital."

"I don't need-" Eliot protested immediately.

Sophie dabbed a clean bandage over an area where the blood was leaking through. For a woman who complained at the thought of dirt and grime, Eliot had to admire the way she stepped up without so much as a word, when things really mattered. "Eliot, from the looks of this you've lost a lot of blood." The words were soft, without judgment, and her dark eyes were patient.

Nate cut in then, delivering the final word on the matter as he so often did. "Seeing as I'm driving, I think all of you can stop arguing. I'll be deciding where we're going and that would be the hospital." As usual, he had to have the final word, but the tightness around his eyes belied his stern tone.

Eliot growled and sunk down lower against Hardison.

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The scent hit him before anything else, that sterile antiseptic smell. It was an unmistakable presence in the air, even beneath the scented something that someone had sprayed in the air in an attempt to mask it. It was the air freshener mixed in with industrial strength cleaner and a hint of something floral. Eliot blinked a few times until the shape of a vase on the table next to his bed slowly came into focus. The lights were turned down, but it was still light enough to see the get well card that Parker had drawn on a piece of paper she had probably filched from somewhere she shouldn't have been.

He was alone, this time. The last two times he'd woken up at least one of his teammates had been by the bedside. Well, one of the others plus Hardison. The man hadn't been absent from his bedside at all through the night. Hardison – and the others, for that matter – still didn't quite seem to be grasping the fact that this wasn't a _bad _wound. Yes, it had required a series of sutures and a blood transfusion to replace what he'd lost, but that was it. A night of observation and an agreement to stay off the leg and he'd be released in the morning if everything went right.

He was blessedly alone for once. He just wanted a few moments to collect himself. All of this, it was overwhelming. He was used to retreating and taking care of himself in the privacy and quiet of his own apartment. Now all of sudden his teammates, who depended on him to an unmovable presence to protect them, were seeing him vulnerable. He didn't quite know what to make it. Truth be told, he probably wouldn't have his thoughts in order until the pain killers were out of his system and he had a day or two to himself.

He shifted his attention to a slight commotion out in the hallway. It was a conversation in hushed tones, but his fine hearing had paid off more than once before this. It would certainly serve him now.

"We're done with this, Nate. I'm putting my foot down here and now." Hardison's voice was chilly.

"You're acting like I'm the one who put a bullet through Eliot's leg," Nate retorted.

"You may as well have. Eliot asked for a break, before the last con. You remember what you told him?"

There was a beat of silence.

"Well maybe I can refresh your memory. I'd be hard pressed to forget it. I believe it was something along the lines of, 'No time off.' And just like that, with a wave of your hand and a quick dismissal, you set Eliot up for this to happen. We've all been run down lately, him more than the rest of us." Hardison's voice wasn't…chilly now, not quite. It was more quietly bitter and disappointed, and from Nate's quick intake of breath, the words had hit home.

It was verbatim for what Nate had said, Eliot mused to himself. Hardison loved to brag about many things, but his near perfect memory wasn't one of them. . Eliot had never asked why; it was enough that Hardison didn't want to speak about it. Eliot of all people knew there were good reasons for keeping personal secrets.

The next part of the exchange was quiet. Almost too quiet, but Eliot strained to listen properly and heard it all the same. "I'm sorry," Nate muttered. It was low and remorseful. It was more than he would've expected from Nate. The man believed himself virtually infallible, to admit fault meant that he was really tying himself in knots over a mistake.

"I appreciate that," Hardison replied, and he no longer sounded like he was going to ream Nate out. He paused, then continued meaningfully, "but what are we going to do in the meantime to make sure this doesn't happen again?"

"Take a break. A real one, this time. Away from Boston and the team. I think we could all use some downtime. I booked you a trip already, if you guys decide you want to go," Nate suggested, and there was a rueful note in his voice.

"Wait, what? When did you have the time to do that?" The heat had almost completely melted out of his boyfriend's voice. Eliot smirked. Hardison put on a good show, but he really wasn't one to hold a grudge very well. It just wasn't in him, and Nate, while imperfect, wouldn't put his team at risk purposefully. He sometimes just got caught up in running around helping people that he forgot how to help those closest to him.

"When you were dealing with the cops. You got them to believe we got mixed up in some gang scuffle on the streets to explain the shooting?"

"Yeah, they bought it just fine. Eliot'll have to do some paperwork when he's feeling up to it, but it's fine. And just where do you plan on sending us?"

"Fishing. That is what Eliot wanted, right?"

"He'll love it. He wasn't quite over the moon about my fishing video game. I'm sure a real fishing trip will be just the thing to get him bouncing back. Speaking of which…"

"Go," Nate suggested. "You've left him alone long enough."

"Thanks, Nate." There was the sound of Hardison clapping a hand on Nate's shoulder.

There was the soft sound of footsteps receding down the hallway as the two men split ways. Hardison stepped into the room a moment later, shutting the door behind him.

"You're awake," he remarked, surprised, as he stepped inside.

Eliot gave a curt nod. "It's hard to sleep in this place." It wasn't home. He could sleep in strange places, anywhere really, if the situation required it, but it was never as restful. The only place he slept soundly, though, was home. More recently that designation had extended to Hardison's place as well. As strange as he'd have found the idea even a year ago, he found it hard to fall asleep when there was an empty space next to him on the bed.

"How's the leg?" Hardison asked, and the lines around his mouth deepened a little.

"It's ok," Eliot replied, shifting it slightly from where it had been propped up on a pillow. "I'll heal." He tried to imbue all the reassurance he could into his voice.

"I know," Hardison responded as he sunk down into the chair next to Eliot's bed. "That doesn't change the fact, though. You got shot jumping distracting the guards from my presence."

"Someone was going to get shot. Those guards were jumpy."

"You don't know that-"

"I do, Hardison. Trust me; they came in with the expectation of firing their weapons."

"Fine, I'll take your word on it," Hardison said, leaning in and putting a hand on the bed railing. "Did you even think about what I would've done if things had gone differently? What I would do without you if-"

He couldn't even finish the statement. Eliot said the words he didn't dare murmur. "You mean if I had died."

Hardison didn't respond for a moment. He bit his lip and looked at the wall. When he finally did speak, there was real fear in his voice. "It could've happened. You realize that? You could've left me alone." The words quavered dangerously. Hardison curled in on himself, shoulders creeping up towards his ears.

"Come over here," Eliot prompted his partner. He scooted over to the opposite side of his bed, motioning at the vacant spot next to him with the hand that didn't have an IV running into it.

"There's no room-"

"I just made room. Just humor the injured man and get up here."

Hardison eyed him skeptically but complied, dropping the railing on the side of the bed and sitting down next to the hitter, carefully, as if the slightest jostle would break him.

As though Eliot was now breakable.

Eliot grabbed Hardison's hand from where he was tapping his fingers nervously in his lap. "I'm okay, Alec. You're ok. It was a decision I made to protect _you. _You think it would be any easier for me if you were ripped out of my life all of a sudden?" He thought back to the way his heart had skipped a beat watching the guard level his gun at Hardison. "I can't…" the words caught in his throat, and he clutched at Hardison's fingers. He couldn't even consider that option. He _wouldn't_ even consider that option.

"No, I suppose not. Do you even know how much I worry every time you go into a building with a mark with nothing to defend yourself?" Hardison's voice was weirdly gentle, and his free hand came to rest on Eliot's hip.

"I _am_ a weapon, Hardison. So is any object in my immediate vicinity. I'm never unarmed." He'd meant it as a reassurance, as a way to help Hardison understand that he'd done it before, and he'd to it again.

It seemed to have the complete opposite effect on Hardison, though. "You're missing the point!" he exclaimed, getting worked up. "I sit there at my computer and listen to you converse with a people that would have no problem snapping your neck if they figured out who you really were and that we were there to pull the wool over their eyes."

"It comes with the job. You can't help people like we do without taking necessary risks," Eliot answered calmly.

"That's the point, Eliot. There are necessary risks, I get that. However, there are blatantly pointless ones too, like your refusal to not put your foot down when you need a break." Hardison's voice was dangerously quiet for a man who was normally so loud.

Eliot let his head tip back into the pillows as he sighed. "I tried, after Juarez. Nate said that the next con was important…"

Hardison jerked back as though struck. "The problem is that for Nate, they are all important. He's driven by an unseen force that doesn't affect us. It's a bit of retribution, for him, for what his employers did to his family and son. Every time he brings another corrupt corporation to its knees-"

Eliot cut in. "He heals a bit. I know. How do you say no to Nate, to the clients he brings in? They all have painful stories of ruined lives. They _need_ our help. They'd literally be without a single other place to turn if we didn't help them."

Hardison sighed deep as if needing a moment to consider the question and the weight it carried. In a sober tone, he murmured, "They can wait. I know it sounds bad, but they've waited this long. A few days or a week longer isn't much in comparison to the risk of you getting shot, or of one us getting killed."

Eliot shifted a bit, wincing as he did so. Painkillers could only do so much. "I don't know, Hardison…"

"I _know _that I can't sit by your bedside in a hospital one more time without a damned good reason," his partner bit out . "As far as I'm concerned, willingly running on nothing but fumes, that's kind of the most ridiculous reason I could think of. We're not going to be of _any _help to _anyone_ if you're _dead!_" The words were fevered, desperate, terrified. He searched Eliot's face for an inkling that the one person he'd so unexpectedly come to care about understood his anxiety.

Eliot thought for a moment, face still. It was hard to combat the open fear on Hardison's face with cold rationality. All he could think of was Hardison, cold and still, and what he'd do to the people who made him like that. Then he put himself in Hardison's shoes for a moment. While he wasn't as violent, Hardison would find a way to ruin the people who put him into the ground or he'd die trying.

"Okay," Eliot replied, relenting easily. This was something new…this negotiation between two parties in a relationship. Suddenly it wasn't just him. Usually this was the time he jumped ship. He was willing to ride this one to whatever destination fate held in mind if this was what he got in return: Hardison's warmth against his side, his irritating humor, his drive and passion.

"Promise me, Eliot. No more unnecessary risks," Hardison demanded . His eyes were bloodshot from a night spent watching Eliot sleep or pacing the halls. His hands were back against Eliot's skin, warming him through and through.

He had no right to put Hardison through this again. He reached up then, and pulled Hardison down into an embrace. Into his partner's ear he murmured the two words that mattered most in that moment. "I promise."

It was like he'd answered Hardison's prayer; he went completely boneless in Eliot's arms, clinging to Eliot in a way he rarely dared to do in public. His shoulders shook once under Eliot's hands as he buried his head in the crook of Eliot's neck. Hardison inhaled then, long and slow, and went to get back up and out of Eliot's space, but the hitter didn't let go. He didn't use force, he could've, but that wasn't the point. His touch was light: Eliot was asking.

Somehow they both fit into the bed, Eliot's body folded perfectly beneath Hardison's arm. For the first time in a very long time, they slept through the night.

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The bags were packed, the taxi was outside. They had checked in for their flight to Costa Rica online, already. Well, Hardison had at least. That was more his thing than Eliot's. If Hardison somehow survived the trip down the stairs with both of their luggage without snapping his neck, they might actually make a clean break for their vacation.

Hardison swore as he missed a stair, miraculously recovering his footing before plunging down to the first floor. "You know I can help, right?" Eliot offered with a hint of laughter on his voice. It was really quite amusing, watching Hardison struggle with the unwieldy suitcases.

"No, no. I got it. I'm good," Hardison insisted. If anything, he raced down the last few stairs to prevent Eliot from stepping in and taking at least one of the suitcases off his hands. The hacker was still being way too protective, as far as Eliot was concerned. His limp was barely noticeable these days, but he humored his boyfriend's whimsy if only to set his mind at ease.

Eliot shouldered his backpack and managed to get past Hardison while the hacker slipped his shoes on. The hitter smiled smugly as he held the door open and motioned Hardison come through.

"Why how gentlemanly of you," Hardison said, smirking.

"I do try my best, " Eliot drawled.

"That Southern blood, I fear I'll never rid you of all your habits."

"This is normally the time I bring up a certain someone who loves my southern drawl in bed…"

"Ok, ok," Hardison shot back, his eyes darting to the cabbie who was watching them curiously through his open window. Despite his dark skin, a hint of a blush showed.

Eliot chuckled and slid into the taxi. Hardison followed soon after securing their luggage in the trunk, pressing closer than the back seat called for. Eliot watched their apartment disappear into the rearview mirror as they pulled onto the road proper.

"You have my computer case, right? She doesn't ride well in a suitcase."

Eliot donned his best shocked expression. "How could I have possibly forgotten?"

"You didn't." Hardison's horrified face was absolutely classic.

"I did actually," the hitter responded with a smirk. He was at least smart enough to bite back his laughter.

"We have to go back," Hardison demanded, grabbing Eliot's arm.

"We'll miss our flight. Besides, we're spending a week on a boat in the middle of the ocean. We're going _fishing._ Computers have no place in that." Eliot sounded deeply unconcerned.

Hardison huffed and crossed his arms, looking out the window as he pouted. Eliot would give him his due; the man might get a little bit of cabin fever out on a boat for that long. In actuality, Eliot wanted-_needed-_some face time with Hardison. He didn't want to compete against some hunk of metal and wires.

They sat there in an amiable silence for a few city blocks before the silence broke.

"It's snowing," Hardison spoke, shock in his voice. "In April. In what deranged universe does this actually make sense?"

Eliot shrugged apathetically. "It's Boston."

"Fair point. I often think Mother Nature gets a little tipsy before deciding what crazy weather phenomenon to drop on this part of the country." Hardison irritated as the flakes swirled down from the sky. They didn't stick, but their presence at all was an offense.

"That or darts at a board. No rhyme or reason to it," Eliot replied.

Hardison chuckled and shook his head, the absence of his computer suddenly forgotten. "Really, though, it's the middle of spring. That's just really a blow below the belt."

Eliot reached an arm over Hardison's shoulder. Though he wasn't really chilled, Hardison's heat warmed his body through. "Just be glad we won't be here to suffer through it. We're headed for warmer territory."

It really was the truth, Eliot thought to himself. Even as the snowflakes drifted down from the sky, Eliot smiled. The first thaw always comes. He had doubted it, in the twilight hours of stake outs and red eye flights hopping across the globe these past few months. He pulled Hardison closer, the bodies of hacker and hitter pressed close together, providing warmth to one another, as they wound through the streets of Boston.

-THE END-

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